Students mapping vacant city buildings for 
Historic Albany
By SARA FOSS, Gazette Reporter 
First published: February 20, 2003 

"Albany will be one of the few U.S. cities to have done this type of data collection." -- Elizabeth Griffin
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ALBANY -- Graduate students at the University of Albany are in the process of creating a citywide inventory of Albany's vacant buildings.

The work was commissioned by the Historic Albany Foundation. The organization hopes the data will be used to develop strategies for reducing the number of vacant buildings in Albany, said Elizabeth Griffin, the organization's executive director.

"We wanted something that would be useful and meaningful," Griffin said. "Albany will be one of the few U.S. cities to have done this type of data collection."

The inventory will eventually be made available to the public.

The students will put together detailed electronic maps that depict where the city's vacant buildings are located. These maps will help show what sorts of patterns of neglect exist in different neighborhoods, Griffin said.

The inventory is part of Historic Albany's vacant buildings initiative, which seeks to identify abandoned properties and figure out how to salvage them.

So far, the data indicate that most of Albany's 800 vacant buildings are located in the South End, West Hill and Arbor Hill.

The information will eventually be given to Albany neighborhood associations. It will also be available from the University at Albany, Historic Albany and the city's Department of Development and Planning. "This is going to be for everyone," Griffin said. Hopefully, she said, the results will inform public policy.

Multiple strategies for dealing with Albany's vacant buildings are needed, Griffin said. Some of the properties may be county foreclosures, but others might be owned by absentee landlords. Some landlords may be responsive to a prospective buyer, while others might want to hold onto their property, she said.

The graduate students also plan to study crime rates in different neighborhoods, and see whether there's any kind of correlation between crime and abandonment.

Last year Historic Albany asked neighborhood leaders to find out how many vacant buildings were in their neighborhoods. The SUNY graduate students will be able to approach the task in a more complete and comprehensive way, Griffin said.

The students doing the survey are enrolled in the University of Albany's graduate school of planning. They should be finished with their work by May.